Eliah G. Overbey, Saswati Das, Henry Cope, Pedro Madrigal, Zaneta Andrusivova, Solène Frapard, Rebecca Klotz, Daniela Bezdan, Anjali Gupta, Ryan T. Scott, Jiwoon Park, Dawn Chirko, Jonathan M. Galazka, Sylvain V. Costes, Christopher E. Mason, Raul Herranz, Nathaniel J. Szewczyk, Joseph Borg, Stefania Giacomello, European Space Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (US), University of Nottingham, Swedish Research Council, Overbey, Eliah G., Das, Saswati, Cope, Henry, Madrigal, Pedro, Andrusivova, Zaneta, Frapard, Solène, Klotz, Rebecca, Bezdan, Daniela, Park, Jiwoon, Chirko, Dawn, Galazka, Jonathan M., Costes, Sylvain V., Mason, Christopher E., Herranz, Raúl, Szewczyk, Nathaniel, Borg, Joseph, and Giacomello, Stefania
15 p.-2 fig.-3 tab., Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and spatially resolved transcriptomics (SRT) have experienced rapid development in recent years. The findings of spaceflight-based scRNA-seq and SRT investigations are likely to improve our understanding of life in space and our comprehension of gene expression in various cell systems and tissue dynamics. However, compared to their Earth-based counterparts, gene expression experiments conducted in spaceflight have not experienced the same pace of development. Out of the hundreds of spaceflight gene expression datasets available, only a few used scRNA-seq and SRT. In this perspective piece, we explore the growing importance of scRNA-seq and SRT in space biology and discuss the challenges and considerations relevant to robust experimental design to enable growth of these methods in the field., H.C., P.M., D.B., R.H., N.J.S., J.B., and S.G. are members of the ESA Space Omics Topical Team, funded by the ESA grant/contract 4000131202/20/NL/PG/pt “Space Omics: Towards an integrated ESA/NASA – omics database for spaceflight and ground facilities experiments” awarded to R.H., which was the main funding source for this work. H.C. is also supported by the Horizon Centre for Doctoral Training at the University of Nottingham (UKRI grant no. EP/S023305/1). S.G. is supported by the Swedish Research Council VR grant 2020-04864. E.G.O. is supported through NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship 80NSSC21K0316.